Date: Wed, 28 Feb 1996 21:02:24 -0500
From: RonButters[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM
Subject: Re: GAY (Changes to the English Language)
I have done a good deal of research on the question of when GAY began to take
on the connotations 'homosexual'. I have an article on the subject which is
virtually complete (I gave earlier versions at the Dictionary Society of
America meeting last summer and at the Lavender Language Conference last
fall). The best SHORT treatment is found in the new RANDOM HOUSE DICTIONARY
OF AMERICAN SLANG, vol. 1. The best published LONG treatment is found in
George Chauncey's GAY NEW YORK.
Everyone agrees that the earliest definitive citing is in Gershon Legman's
1941 lexicon of homosexual terminology, where he lists GAY as used in this
way only by members of the "homosexual subculture"; it seems to have been
unknown to the general public, even in major metropolitan areas of the United
States. Many people also believe that Gertrude Stein used the term with this
meaning in the 1920s in "Miss Furr and Miss Skeen," though I find that
dubious myself. Chauncey and RANDOM HOUSE SLANG DICT. both repeat the
commonly held theory that Cary Grant was using the term to mean 'homosexual'
in a famous scene in the movie BRINGING UP BABY (1938). Again, I am dubious,
though whether or not that is what Grant had in mind (the use was apparently
an ad lib) his uttering of the phrase "I've just gone gay" as a way of
explaining why he was wearing a dress doubtless greatly amused large numbers
of members of the "homosexual subculture" and may even have helped spread the
term (though the movie was not wildly popular when it was first released).
Anyway, the short answer to the question is, "GAY was certainly used by
homosexuals as an arcane adjective of self-reference in the 1930s, at least
in major metropolitan centers of the United States. It spread socially and
geographically throughout the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. It is interesting to
note (Chauncey reports) that many homosexual men in the 1940s resisted the
new term, preferring instead to refer to themselves as FAIRIES or QUEERS. GAY
seemed too trivial. Moreover, there was a common slang sense of GAY in the
United States that meant what CHEEKY and OUT OF LINE mean today (i.e.,
'brash', 'overbearing').
This is probably more than most of you wanted to know. If you want to know
even more, I'll be happy to send you a copy of my article ("What Did Cary
Grant Know and When Did He Know I?") as soon as I put the final finishing
touches on it.